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  “Mary brushed the hair off Earl’s hot face. Her fingers found the points on his ears.

  “‘Elves,’ she said, and for a moment her hands stopped moving. ‘We didn’t know it was elves we saw that night when we hid on the stairs. We only thought it was children.’ She paused, then said, almost to herself, ‘Although we did wonder how children could do that kind of cobbler work.

  “My heart began to beat in my throat. She knew what we were. She’d push us away. We’d be judged on the reputation of our kind, not on the work we’d done.”

  “Which just shows how addled her brain was. Almost as addled as my own.”

  “‘Oh, please,’ I begged again. ‘We’re not like the others. Please don’t tell us to get along, move along. Not now.’

  “Mary looked at me, her gray eyes steady. She dipped a cloth into the well water and pressed it to Earl’s forehead. She draped a second one across his left wrist.

  “‘Child,’ she said clearly, ‘you’re welcome to stay as long as you like. Both of you.’”

  “And stay we did. She pulled me through, did Mary. She and the shoemaker.”

  “Wonderful Mary. Wonderful shoemaker. We’ve been there ever since.”

  The twins are almost dancing with excitement when they’ve finished their story.

  “Did you see? Did you feel?” Maddie cries in happiness as they cross the threshold into the waiting area. “They liked it. They liked it as well as all the other tales they’ve heard tonight!”

  “As well?” Earl asks. “I think they may have liked it the best.”

  “Nicely told,” says John as they bounce past him.

  “Oh, thank you,” Maddie sings. “Yours, too. Wonderful.” And she giggles in pure happiness.

  Toby steps up to the twins and smiles a dog smile. Both Earl and Maddie stop, look at Toby, look at each other, and say, “Oh,” on a long breath.

  “It was you, wasn’t it?” Maddie says, kneeling down to hug the dog.

  Toby barks once. He touches Earl’s foot with his paw and wanders through the crowd of storytellers before he joins Mama Inez.

  “A magic all his own,” Earl says as he watches Toby.

  Toby smiles his dog smile at Mama Inez. She reaches down and rubs his ears. “Excellent work, my boy,” she says as she remembers how Toby found the twins’ story by himself. A leaf the color of maple syrup had landed near the waterfall just as she was getting ready to slide into Mae’s story; Mae, who hadn’t been able to come to this gathering. Toby had barked three times.

  “I know,” Mama Inez had said in a distracted way, “but I can’t. Not now.”

  Toby had simply nodded his big head, turned sideways, and slipped away.

  Now Mama Inez ruffles his fur and repeats, “Excellent work. A perfect addition to tonight’s gathering.”

  Toby bows, gracious as royalty. He turns to his left, and there’s Maisie.

  To both Mama Inez and Toby she says, “I thought I knew something about magic. I thought I’d seen all of it that existed in this world.” She laughs and shakes her head. “I’m not even close, am I? Look at all of us. You can drink the magic floating through this room, like the best wine.”

  Mama Inez agrees. “It’s always amazing. I’ve seen it before, but each time it’s completely different.”

  “It’s hard for me to imagine that it was ever this strong. But then I used to think magic was only fey folk watching our goats.”

  “Things change all the time,” Mama Inez says. Lights flash in her eyes, and for the hint of a second Maisie sees the ripple of the water in the Mile River on a fall night. Maisie blinks, looks again, and sees the ripple once more, which makes her know that she and Mama Inez have met before. She says, simply, “Thank you.”

  “You’re most welcome,” Mama Inez says with a smile.

  Maisie thinks about magic and change, how they both can come when you least expect it. Then she thinks about the reason for tonight’s gathering. “And the stumble in the world. Are we having an effect?”

  Mama Inez stands, quiet, contemplative, her fingers curled in Toby’s fur. She reaches out to touch the world with all her senses, to feel the spin. In her mind she pulls on the story strands. Her fingers dance on a spindle only she can see as she spins the wool of tonight’s stories, then twists it in with other patterns of the universe. After a moment, Mama Inez breathes out a long, gentle breath. Halfway there, is what she thinks. Half the way to correcting the spin, to healing the ripple. She’s able to tell Maisie, with certainty, “We’re well on the way,” which makes Maisie nod and step out to the teller’s cushion with a confident stride.

  Mama Inez and Toby walk to the back of the tent. Here Mama Inez arranges, in her raku jar, the talismans used so far: the brocade ribbon, the seashell, the gold coin, the tiny purple brogue. She adds Maisie’s stone from the Mile River, then goes back to the tent opening to watch and to listen.

  The moon is sending just enough light into the tent to glimmer off the cups and glasses of the crowd. In the waiting area, Roberto and Franz move their rings around, weighing shapes, styles, and colors. Maisie sits cross-legged and begins.

  Carter House

  “EVERYTHING STARTED WHEN I brought up the topic of Carter House. You, too, I’m sure, would be curious if your family lived in a small cottage and kept goats when they also owned a manorish house just over the southern hills. You, too, would ask questions, just as you would want to see the place that, being an only child, would one day belong to you.

  “It started at breakfast. ‘Father, let’s go to Carter House,’ I said. ‘I’d like to see it. You always promised I’d be able to go when I got older.’ I’d stayed away all my life, less because of a desire to mind my parents than because of the reputation of the place, dangerous and decrepit. And because of the nightmare stories I’d heard of the horrible things that happened to people bold enough to go there.

  “But the horrible things I heard about always happened at night, and always, of course, on a night when there was no moon, and they were, I was realizing, always described by a friend of a friend. They’d taken on the cast of legend. Still, I’d stayed away. And here I was, eighteen. As I told my father, ‘Eighteen today. My birthday. That’s old enough, surely.’

  “When I got no response, I played my best card. ‘It’s a beautiful day. We can take a picnic.’

  “Really, there’s nothing to compare with eating in a sun-drenched glade, breezes in your hair, bird shadows racing across the grass. I knew the weakness both my parents had for picnics.

  “My father’s answer was short and to the point. ‘No,’ he said.

  “My father is a loquacious man. One of the things he loves to do best is to talk. About everything and nothing.

  “‘No?’ I asked, surprised. ‘Just no?’

  “‘Maisie, let it go,’ my mother said. ‘No one goes to Carter House.’

  “‘Then no one will be there to disturb us.’

  “My father, a calm man in most circumstances, began to glower. ‘Maisie. The answer is no.’

  “I looked at both my parents. My mother, uncharacteristically, said nothing and twisted her hands. My father was agitated. His own hands fluttered over the breakfast things, two lost doves looking for a resting place.

  “I was in the middle of deciding if I should press my point when my mother came to a decision. I knew because she relaxed her hands, shifted her weight in a way that made me remember that she was descended from royalty, and said, on a soft sigh, ‘Oh, tell her, Peter. It’s time.’

  “My father looked angry, but my mother had made up her mind. When this happens, there’s no stopping her. ‘She has a right to know. She may even have a need.’ Then she repeated, ‘It’s time.’

  “He seemed to deflate, to fold in on himself like a house built of soft, old cards. ‘Haunted,’ he whispered in a voice like the winds blowing across the low marsh grasses. ‘Haunted and wrapped in fey spells. That means danger.’

  “‘Haunted.’ ‘Fey.
’ ‘Danger.’ Which should come first? ‘What sort of danger?’ I asked.

  “‘The kind that hurts mortals. Never, Maisie, never get involved with the fey.’

  “Ah. He’d given me two words for one. I preened, proud of my choice. I wanted to capture ‘haunted’ next, but that short little word ‘fey’ was standing in my way.

  “‘Wait. You’ve always said the fey are on our side. They help with the goats, you’ve said, keep them giving milk, keep them strong and healthy. Isn’t that why we put out the cakes and the coffee? As offerings?’

  “‘Yes, of course,’ my mother said. ‘Your father only meant to stay away from the fey at Carter House. There are fey and there are fey, my daughter.’

  “‘Could you be a bit more obscure? I’m almost understanding you.’ I watched my parents. They watched me until my father’s gaze faltered and he sighed, another low, mournful sound.

  “‘You could just tell me,’ I suggested. ‘I’m an adult now.’

  “‘Peter,’ my mother said, and she sounded as if she were encouraging him.

  “He sighed again, but this time the sigh merged with his story. ‘Almost twenty-one years ago, and still just as painful.’ Then, as if he’d had a flash of inspiration, he said, ‘You could tell, Marigold.’

  “‘It’s not my story,’ she said, her emphasis on ‘my.’

  “My father took a long drink from his coffee cup, then made a face. ‘Cold,’ he whined.

  “There was a warning look in my mother’s eyes as she rose and said, ‘I’ll make a fresh pot. You have a story to tell.’

  “He watched her walk away and kept his eyes on the doorway even after she’d disappeared. I cleared my throat. He turned back to me and said with great reluctance, ‘He was my best friend, you see. We’d known each other all our lives. We played at being warriors, even though we’d been lucky enough to never see a war. We acted rough and worldly, even though we’d never been farther than the outskirts of town. We dreamed of honor and glory. And then he—he was lost.’

  “‘Who was lost?’

  “‘Thom, of course,’ my father said, surprise in his voice. ‘Thom Lyndenhall, the one who haunts Carter House.’

  “This wasn’t going to be easy. ‘Thom was your friend?’ I tried.

  “A nod from my father.

  “‘He was lost at Carter House?’

  “‘My father’s house, yes, and my home. Thom visited so often, he had his own room.’

  “I shook my head. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand.’

  “‘Eighteen is a dangerous age.’ My father looked straight at me, and now his gaze was sharp and focused. ‘Eighteen is when you know you rule the world, when you believe everything and everyone will bow down before you.’

  “I was indignant. ‘I don’t—’

  “He went right on. ‘Eighteen was what we were when we went out on that full-moon Halloween night. Our shadows ghosted before us while we waited to see if the Queen of the Faeries really rode at midnight, when the line between real and magic is so thin, it can be broken by a light puff of wind.’

  “I remembered all my parents’ warnings, repeated yearly, about never being away from home after dark on Halloween. I pictured two young men, bold and brash, casting hollow moon shadows and waiting for the queen.

  “‘And did the queen ride?’ I asked.

  “‘Oh, yes. She and her entire entourage. We heard them coming from far away. You know how sound carries when the night is still and cold. We heard the hoofbeats, the jangle of bridles decked with bells. Then we saw them, their shadows stretching before them, long and thin, and as ghostly as our own.

  “‘When they actually appeared, the queen rode at the front, on a horse as black as the night itself. She was dressed in green, the color of new spring grass. Behind her came what must have been her high court, all on horses of brown in shades ranging from bitter chocolate to cocoa. At the back was the white horse, just the one. White as our goat’s best cream. And on that white horse’s back, collared with garlands of spring flowers—’

  “‘Wait, wait,’ I interrupted. ‘Spring flowers? On Halloween?’

  “My father kept his eyes on my face and nodded, one short, emphatic nod. ‘The same thing Thom said.

  “‘“Peter,” he whispered. “Lily of the valley. Jack in the pulpit. Purple hyacinth. Tooth of the lion.” And “Shhh,” I told him. “Shush. Quiet.”

  “‘I spoke as softly as I could, but it was no use. She’d heard his voice.

  “‘We saw her double back, did Thom and I. Heard her asking her court who was lurking in the bushes. And Thom shoved at me, knocked me down to hide me, just before she was upon us.’

  “‘And?’ I asked, urgent. Because it was coming, I knew it was. Something horrible was here, and I needed to know what it was, what my father had been so reluctant to reveal for all these years.

  “‘And I scrambled away on my hands and knees until I could get up and run.’ It was the barest whisper. ‘And Thom has not been seen for these twenty-one years.’

  “I sat, stunned, and stared at my father.

  “‘You left him there?’ My voice sounded rusted and scratchy.

  “‘I did,’ my father said, ‘and I’ve regretted it ever since.’

  “‘This is why we’ve never been to Carter House?’

  “It was my mother who answered—answered so quickly, she must have been listening just out of sight to the whole story.

  “‘When Thom disappeared, it was just after your father began courting me. Within three and a half years, everything at Carter House came to a halt. Crops. Animals. It all seemed to wind down like a broken clock. No one knew why. Nothing anyone tried helped. And by then, we had you to consider.’

  “‘So you came here?’ I waved a vague hand that stirred dust motes in the air and sent them skidding into the corners of our cottage.

  “‘We did.’ My mother’s voice was calm and proud. She came and stood next to my father, rested a hand on his shoulder. ‘And we’ve been happy here. We’ve done well enough. We’ve even prospered.’

  “I read the spaces between her words. ‘You miss it,’ I said in surprise. ‘The manor house. The grounds. Space to walk without having to dance jigs around each other. You miss it all.’

  “‘I could stay here easily, and die happy,’ my mother said, ‘but yes, there are times when I do miss it.’

  “My father looked at her, and that look was so sad that I made my decision right then. I would go to Carter House. I would win back what belonged to us. I would regain my family’s rights and my father’s pride.

  “I went that very night. There may have been some truth in my father’s comments about eighteen-year-olds, after all. When our cottage had relaxed into sleep, I went out under the glow of a thin crescent moon. I followed my lamp’s light across the fields to Carter House. It loomed large well before I walked through the gate.

  “Twenty steps in stood a fine, strong horse, gray as weathered stone, tied to the broken brick that edged an old well. In the light from my lamp I could see roses tangled around the well winch. Blood roses, and roses as white as my mother’s best tablecloths after they’ve baked in the afternoon sun. I never even thought. I patted the nose of the horse, and I picked two roses, one red, one white.

  “By the time I had the roses twined together, using some of the tall grasses that brushed against my boots, he was in front of me. Tall and slender, with cheekbones that caught and held the light, and eyes that held the stars. Looking in those eyes was like falling into the universe.

  “There was scorn and anger in his voice when he said, ‘You pick my roses.’

  “Yes, he was beautiful. But if these roses belonged to anyone, they belonged to me. I let that show in my voice when I said, ‘No. I pick my roses.’

  “He smiled, but there was little humor when he said, ‘By what right do you call these yours?’

  “‘By right of birth. And you?’

  “He stammered a bit. ‘By birth
? But—but I live here.’

  “‘Ah. You haven’t done much with the place, have you?’ I looked at the overgrowth, the tangles and brambles, the broken windows gripping pieces of the fingernail moon.

  “‘Who are you, then?’ Bravado.

  “‘Maisie Carter.’ Then I repeated my previous question. ‘And you?’

  “‘Thom Lyndenhall.’

  “I know my mouth dropped open. I know my eyes got wide. I even know that I stopped breathing. And when I started breathing and was able to talk, all I could say was ‘You can’t be.’

  “He laughed then. ‘Do you say so? But you see, here I am, and this is me.’

  “I sat down, more because my legs felt wobbly than out of any true desire to sit in the damp muddle of grasses. I looked up at him. The skinny moon drew a halo around his head. I said, ‘My father’s name is Peter Carter.’

  “He sat down, too, thumping hard on the ground. ‘I once knew a Peter Carter.’ He spoke slowly, and his eyes were tight on my face. ‘He was my friend. My best friend.’

  “I nodded.

  “‘And this was his house,’ he continued.

  “I nodded again and pulled at the grass tangles.

  “‘How old are you?’ It was, and was not, an abrupt change of subject.

  “‘Eighteen. Today.’

  “‘And you’re here now. Which means…How long have I been—gone?’

  “I swallowed twice, then said, ‘If what I hear is true, twenty-one years.’

  “Thom was silent for so long that I thought I saw the moon shift in the sky. When he did finally speak, it was as if he were alone. ‘Twenty-one years…Ah, Peter. If I’d only gone with you that night.’

  “He looked at me then, straight at me. When he spoke this time, he sounded desperate. ‘You can’t imagine what it’s like. As long as the queen is pleased, everything is beautiful. It’s a game, a wonderful game. Life passes you by. You never age, or even think about the passage of time. But of course, there’s payment for everything.’ He waved a hand from his face to his feet. ‘Look at me, and think of your father.’